The Final Affair

by David McDaniel

  "One other thing, Mr. Solo," said Short. "You'll want to report back to headquarters as soon as possible. We'll give you a full report on the situation, but there are a lot of things they want to know and you are the man to tell them what to do."

  "Me?,"

  "Mr. Solo — you are now active Section One, Number One. Mr. Waverly's command sub was blown to pieces by a counter-attack from the island about half an hour ago. There could not have been any survivors — one of the support subs a quarter-mile away was damaged by the blast. I'm sorry, sir..."

  Napoleon's face was deathly grey in the eerie half-light, and he turned blindly to Joan before sagging forward over the chair and slipping limply to the floor, unconscious.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Sometime Again, Napoleon."

  On an afternoon late in the year, Ward Baldwin sat in the study of the tall old house on Alamo Square, and contemplated a high-sided wooden tray. It was divided into dozens of compartments, each as wide and half as high as the packs of tall cards which stood in them. Four knitting needles rested in a groove along one side of the box, and a representation of a card was painted on the front surrounded by arrows and numbers.

  Each of the fifteen hundred or so cards represented a professional criminal who had worked in London just before the turn of the century. It showed his name, his contact, his specialty and his price, along with his police record, physical measurements and notes on his talents, training and limitations. All key information was repeated in the coded notches along the top and both sides of each card. A regular pattern of holes edged every card — holes large enough to pass a knitting needle. If a card represented a safe cracker, the first, third and fourth holes on the right side were clipped out to leave open notches. Passing three needles through the appropriate aligned holes in the full pack would lift out every card except those of all safe crackers, whatever else they might be. A murderer was represented by another notch code; a fence, an arsonist, a forger, all could be sorted out of the hundreds of professional criminals here catalogued in seconds.

  This primitive box of Hollerith cards had grown in the founding office of the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity during the first few years of their pioneering operation. Building from an earlier, individually run organisation, they had applied the most advanced methods of their time to the problem of undisciplined crime and the establishment of a central information service which maintained certain control and direction over the activities of its clients. In twenty years — with the help of the first outbreak of the Great European War — the Hierarchy had become truly international. The acronymic nickname was coined in 1919, and the first warbird symbol appeared in 1923 on a blazer badge in Chicago.

  During the first and fourth decades of the Twentieth Century they reorganised internally, broadening their base of power. Then when the simmering pot of The War returned to a boil, and the world erupted a second time, the Hierarchy was ready to profit from both sides.

  The War had brought him Irene, he reflected, and set in motion events that had brought him all else he wanted from life: San Francisco, a comfortable income and freedom to pursue his own researches. He didn't expect to change his way of life just because the Hierarchy had fallen — though the data banks of Thrush Central had been seized legally after all, with a special warrant signed by the Governor, the name of Ward Baldwin was entered there only for royalty payments on several dozens of his patents, and only those texts could be subpoenaed. His lawyer would appear in court to explain just why.

  Months had passed, and nothing had been heard from Central. If the Island were still in operation, no word had come to any of his friends on five continents. Could it be possible that after three-quarters of a century the Hierarchy was no more? He had been born in the same month that five men met in London to form the First Council, he mused. So much had happened since then.

  But the Hierarchy was more than men and machines — it was more than the reels of magnetic tape and files of paper. Like this tray of cards, the value in the Hierarchy was information. Tape can be erased, and paper can be burnt, but data can be endlessly duplicated or be carried in the untappable mind or generated anew. Patterns erased from the tape or burned with the paper have a ghostly life of their own, and can never be destroyed, only lost for a while.

  There came a tap at the door as he sat musing, and Irene entered at his invitation. She held an envelope and a card in her hand.

  "Ward, this note just arrived in the mail. I thought you should see it — it's from Mr. Kuryakin. He says Alexander Waverly is dead."

  "Waverly, eh? Does he say when or how?"

  "No, but apparently it was sometime ago. He says both he and Mr. Solo have been incapacitated or he would have written sooner, but he doesn't go into details."

  Baldwin sighed. "Old Waverly. He was a year younger than I, you know. A fine man; I wish I could have known him better. Interesting coincidence, don't you think; all this incapacitation in the fighting arm of U.N.C.L.E. — but it gives me the odd feeling we may not expect to hear from Central at all for quite some time, my dear. Remarkable... One can't help but wonder how it was accomplished."

  "And this one is addressed to both of us. The postmark is the same but the handwriting is different."

  Baldwin slit the envelope and drew out an inner, unsealed envelope. This yielded an engraved card which he regarded seriously for several seconds before passing to his wife.

  "Mr. Solo is getting married! How nice," said Irene. "I wonder who Joan Galton is."

  "Her second married name," said Baldwin in an odd voice, "was Perry. Widow of a Thrush Tech with us almost twenty years. Did you know she was involved with Mr. Solo before he started with U.N.C.L.E.? I'd wondered about that. Her profile had recommended she be kept away from him."

  "Somehow they seem to have gotten back together despite everything," Irene observed. "Wait! Joan Perry — wasn't she —

  "She was working, in our BioPsych section when last seen. She took a weekend's leave early in August, just before things started to go wrong, and never came back. And I had written her off." He chuckled. "Now that I think of it, she checked out the same night Stevens was killed — and she was the last one to talk to him. I remember noticing that when her AWOL case came up." He chuckled again. "I do believe Mr. Solo has put one over on us," he said, tapping bony fingers on his knee.

  "Now, Ward, you weren't going to do something to spoil things for them. It's too late to help Thrush, and vengeance is a sour dish for an old mouth."

  "Vengeance?" said Baldwin. "Nonsense. Waverly played the game fairly and won — I'm glad to have escaped the - sinking of the Hierarchy with no more damage than a slight tightening of the belt. After all, I still have you — and Robin, and my work."

  "And two thousand dollars a month in industrial royalties."

  "I'll miss the computer — most of my working data is still on microfilm in the files, but it was convenient to have it available through the terminal. Perhaps we could subscribe to a service locally. Varan Haruchi picked up most of the old hardware. He might be persuaded to trade service for service... I must contact Saul Panzer in New York, and have him find out how Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin are. Perhaps some appropriate observance...

  Napoleon shifted uncomfortably in his antique formal attire, and shook his head at Illya. They sat in an ivyed niche at the foot of a wide lawn and a sunlit crowd around white-draped tables. "I must say I never expected my best man to show up in full dress uniform as an Admiral in the —"

  "Vice-Admiral, Napoleon. Remember, I was originally detached from Russian Naval. Intelligence, and my commission is still with them. ' Besides," he smiled, "I thought it lent a touch of color to your drab ceremony-in pink and qrey with a little bit of yellow. Now, you should see a village wedding in the Ukraine, with bonfires and dancing and hundreds of guests."

  "I'd like to," said Napoleon. "Maybe some time you can show me one."

  He paus
ed. "There was something else, wasn't there."

  "Yes... I've been called home, along with my promotion. Would you believe I'm the second youngest Vice-Admiral in the Russian Navy?"

  Napoleon nodded. "You look very dashing with the sling. How's the shoulder holding?"

  "The pins are nearly solid, I'm told. Should be just as good as new in another month or two. I'll be in some instructional position when I go back — I'll send you my address."

  "You?" said Napoleon. "At a blackboard?"

  Illya sighed. "Probably not for long. I expect to spend the next six months polishing my Manchurian dialect and studying some new techniques. I'll probably be in China next summer. My Moscow address will stay valid, but there may be delays in forwarding."

  Joan, in a small cloud of pink, came across the grass towards them from the reception. "Napoleon," she was saying, "I'm so glad your partner could be here."

  "Does Mom seem to accept your amnesia story? We've got the best medical evidence money can buy."

  "I don't really think so, but she's too nice to say anything. She's just glad you're settling down."

  "Behind a desk;" said Napoleon."

  "But the big desk," said Illya. "You'll never get fat in that chair."

  Napoleon nodded.. "I remember the last time I held it. Without Thrush working on me it should be a relative picnic. Did you see the file on that, W by the way? I was code-named 'Waterloo.'

  "Mr. Simpson has been running barefoot through the top secret research reports and filing a summary every day on the most interesting ones," Joan said. "You can look at them all when you no back to work — not before. I talked it over with Miss Cramer. Local offices are doing fine at sweeping up and you won't really be needed for another month or so. Mr. Allison has come back to sign a few things. After all, you're still officially on medical leave, and I expect it'll take you at least until Christmas to recover fully."

  "Did he ever find anything On the Flin Flon Monster?"

  "The what? Oh, yes, in fact he mentioned you'd be interested in that. Very disappointing. It was something that didn't work out — they scrapped it a little later."

  Illya stood. "You'd better be getting back to the reception, Napoleon. I have a plane to catch. But first, there's one more wedding present for you. It came to my apartment last week, and I've had the boys in the lab checking it over ever since. It's absolutely nothing more than it appears. Ward and Irene Baldwin sent it."

  It was a staghorn and ebony stick, with a one-inch silver band just below the handle. On the front was engraved a tiny U.N.C.L.E. globe; on the back the legend, "W.B. to N.S. 1970."

  Napoleon levered himself to his feet, braced with an aluminum crutch, and took the cane in his hand. "It feels comfortable," he said.

  "One more thing I think you should know, now that it's all over. Remember 'Little Brother'?"

  "I'll never forget him."

  "Did you know that of those last two wires, one would have detonated the device?"

  "I guessed, when you told me not to touch the other one. Whichever one wasn't cut would set it off."

  "Not exactly. I had the mechanism worked out, you see, but I still hadn't figured out the color-coding of the wires. It didn't make sense. If I'd had a piece of paper, or if I'd been able to think more clearly, I might have. But I didn't have the least idea at that point which of those wires would set it off."

  "You didn't..." said Joan.

  "Then it did matter," said Napoleon. "You said cut either one."

  "No," said Illya. "I said, 'Cut one of them.' That was all. I've worked with you for seven highly variable years, all together, and one thing I knew was that you are lucky. I don't understand it, and I knew it didn't work if you worried about it. But if I had chosen one of the wires and told you to cut it, my odds of success would be fifty percent, because I believe in the laws of probability. If you chose the one to cut, without being overwhelmingly aware that you would never know if you made the wrong choice, I guessed you had about a two-thirds chance of choosing correctly under the circumstances. I must say I'm glad you did."

  Napoleon sat down again. A taxi honked at the foot of the lawn and Illya looked around. "That's for me," he said. "Sometime again, Napoleon." And he was gone at a trot, his left arm encumbered, officer's cap gripped in his right hand, blond hair catching the breeze.

  Napoleon stared after him. "Smart Russian," he said, and stood to wave his free arm as the taxi pulled away. Then he turned to Joan. "Come on," he said. "We should get back to our own reception. Leave the crutch here — I think I'll show off my new cane."

  —the end—

  1 In answer to numerous questions: the rules for Botticelli, also known as Culture, may be found in most large books on games. The cycle of play is simple, as sketchily outlined above: data is gathered through yes/no questions whenever the subject fails to correctly identify a reference, until the assumed identity of the subject is guessed, in the same form. Unlike most Q&A games, both sides must work continually. SuperGhosts is an evolution from the well-known game of Ghosts, and was discovered to me by James Thurber. It is illustrated elsewhere. Admittedly, both play better with more than two. —D.McD.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Ready To Do It —"

  "You mean he's wired with a backup system?"

  "Effectively. It would've been simpler if we'd been able to bring him in last night, but this is supposed to get the job done — and probably with a little less damage to Harry's fragile mental condition."

  Napoleon and Illya sat over spread sheets of the Sunday Chronicle, their U.N.C.L.E. Specials disassembled and a pack of linen rags between them. The office air conditioner strove in vain to pump out the heavy pungent odor of gun oil and solvent as they passed an idle hour stripping and cleaning their personal weapons in a quiet conference room, unused at this late hour. Napoleon sighted into his muzzle, tipping the receiver to catch the light, squinting along the spiral grooves for any grains of foreign matter which had missed his energetic swabbing. "How does it work?" he asked. "A big black Cadillac with drawn curtains pulls up beside him on the street and whisks him away to an obscure fate?"

  "No, he comes willingly. You should know enough about Dr. Grayson's technique to be able to figure that out. Sometime early this evening Little Sirrocco called him up and in the middle of an apparently harmless conversation she slipped him the prearranged cue phrase, which triggers a series of sub-conscious reactions to bring him to her place within an hour or two. Then he's debriefed, re-briefed, re-programmed if necessary, and sent out." "Uh-huh. He did volunteer, right?"

  "It couldn't have worked if he hadn't. Thrush has the technology to make it work, but it's surgical, irreversible, and has several unpleasant side effects. I'd like to think nobody but they would use it."

  Solo snapped the slide closed and wiped his fingerprints off the metal. "What's the key phrase she uses? Anything to justify the behavior pattern it initiates?"

  "You might say so. I think it's something like, ' I'm lonely, big boy.' She was going to call him about 7:30, which means he should be under at the moment. He'll be sent home about half past two."

  "Shouldn't we be there to participate in the briefing?"

  "Napoleon, you want to be in on everything. Any extraneous presences would complicate Dr. Grayson's task. Besides, he might recognise us if he ever got a good look at us."

  "You're being reasonable again. I just like to keep track of what's going on. I presume we'll be called if anything develops?"

  "I have Mr. Waverly's word on it. After all, it's only 11:00."

  Napoleon finished repacking the kit and wiped his fingers fastidiously on a rag. "There are a lot of places I'd like to go and spend a couple of hours — no reflection on your company, but U.N.C.L.E. HQ gets pretty quiet between midnight and six a.m. If it wasn't for the fact that Baldwin probably has bugs under some of the most interesting beds in San Francisco I'd be out investigating the Barbary Coast. Any ideas?"

  "Not while we're collectin
g duty pay. I have a landlord to feed in Brooklyn Heights."

  "If you didn't throw all your money away on riotous living, you mad Russian, you could afford to live as well as I do."

  "And you don't have a cent put away, and your checking account runs into Ready Reserve about five times a year. You live like Aesop's grasshopper."

  "While your savings balance as of last month was $14,582.07. Why don't you buy stock with it or something?"

  "It's against my principles. Don't you expect to live to retire?"

  "I trust in Social Security and U.N.C.L.E.'s retirement plan. I'll move to the Maldives, after sailing the Pursang around the world just to prove I can, and chase native girls, until I'm shot by a jealous husband at the age of 102. I'm essentially a man of simple tastes."

  Illya scratched a speck from the white inset initial K in the broad square butt of his special, and didn't look at Napoleon as he asked casually, "Have you thought about getting married?"